Who’s Holding Donna Now is only hit number two for DeBarge in this country, but they are not newcomers to the pop scene in the USA. Their recent album Rhythm of the Night, from which their last two UK singles were taken, is in fact their third, and each has sold a million copies in the States. It was five years ago that DeBarge the pop group signed a recording contract, but the music of the family DeBarge goes back much further.
The five pop starts, Mark, Eldra, James, Randy and sister Bunny, are only half of the DeBarge children: they have four more brothers and one other sister!
Bunny explained that singing and playing instruments was always a strong part of their family life.
“Everybody on our mother’s side of the family is very musical, so for as long as I can remember there was always singing or listening to music around out house. Also, mother and our relatives are church members and we would go to church practically every day.
“Our friends used to think we were crazy because we wanted to go to church so much when we were so young, but it was real good fun. The whole family was in the choir, so it gave us the chance to sing together and to play instruments which were enjoyed doing the most of all.”
Eldra, the lead vocalist, continued: “Back then, we didn’t think about forming a group and making any sort of commercial success out of singing. It was just something we did that made us happy at that time. It was only when the Jackson Five made it big that the older members of the family, who were about their age realized we had potential as a group. We weren’t really that concerned, but we thought at the time that they (The Jackson Five) were just an ordinary family like us, so why not give it a chance?!”
It took a move to Los Angeles, though, for the DeBarge youngsters to get that chance.
“We began performing locally,” Mark told us, “at High School dances and such like, and went down pretty well. That made us want to go on, but we knew we would never get very fair if we stayed in our home town. We had to go to Los Angeles because that’s the centre of the American music business. We were lucky enough to have older members of our family living there, so we could go there even though our mother wanted to stay put in Grand Rapids, Michigan.”
The group quickly scored hit after hit in their native country, and after a while won the international acclaim that brought them on this trip to Europe.
The quickfire promotional tour is DeBarge’s first time in Great Britain, and although they will be visiting several different European countries it was the UK that they were most looking forward to.
Bunny explained: “I’ve always dreamed about coming to Britain, as I’ve read so much about the people and the lifestyle and everything. I’ve always been totally fascinated by it. So much in the way of music and fashion seems to be coming out of the UK at the moment that we were dying to see what went on here. Although we haven’t had much time to look, around, we like what we’ve seen so far very much. We were really excited when we heard that we’d made the Top 10 over here, mainly because we know it would give us a chance to visit!”
Eldra continued: “We weren’t really surprised that it took us so long to crack the charts over here, because the British make so much good music of their own that they can afford to be incredibly selective about what they’ll accept from abroad. We figured Rhythm Of The Night would do it, though, because the timing was right, it was a good summery song, and everyone at our record company over here was working so hard on it. It’s great that Donna’s doing so well, too, so I hope we can keep going over here for a while.”
Originally published in Lookin’ Magazine, July 1985. Article writer unknown.
Transcribed for the web by www.thedebarges.blgospot.com
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